Blencowe Resources PLC (LSE:BRES) has said that further metallurgical test work on its Orom-Cross graphite project in Northern Uganda has confirmed the high quality of end products.
The test work, conducted by the leading Chinese graphite technical specialist laboratory at Wuhan University, was carried out on a substantially increased scale of 150kgs.
The results of the test work highlight a high-grade, low impurity concentrate, demonstrating a 95-98% Total Graphite Content (TGC) for all graphite mesh sizes. The test work also revealed increased recoveries, with a rise from 90% to 93%. Moreover, refinements to the processing methodology led to an increased percentage of higher-value large and jumbo flakes within the concentrate, from 36% to 38%.
Blencowe's success in the metallurgical test work provides the company with a considerably larger volume of end product concentrate to send to potential offtake and strategic parties. The results will be crucial in the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) and in discussions with potential off-take partners.
In a statement, Cameron Pearce, executive chairman of Blencowe Resources, expressed his delight with the latest metallurgical results and emphasized the significance of these findings for the company's project value.
He said: "We are delighted to see that our graphite product continues to deliver strong metallurgical results, which is now endorsed by the leading graphite processing team in China."
Pearce added: "I cannot emphasize enough that success within graphite projects is largely based on metallurgy, and we are consistently getting results that end users of the product will find highly attractive."
Blencowe said it will proceed with further improvements and optimization to the plant based on these encouraging results. The company will also focus on processing the previously announced 100 ton bulk sample, which has been extracted and exported from Uganda to China.
The ongoing refinement of the commercial plant design throughout the DFS will aim to optimize the pilot process and the quality of the end product, it added.